SOCHI, February 17 (R-Sport) – Russia’s Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov won bronze in the Winter Olympics ice dance Monday with a “Swan Lake” performance that delighted the home crowd in Sochi.
Meryl Davis and Charlie White ended America’s gold medal drought in the discipline with a sumptuous performance to “Sheherezade” that put them nearly five points clear of Canada’s Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, the 2010 Olympic champions in Vancouver.
After breaking their own world record in the short dance, Davis and White did the same in the free program to score a total 195.52. It is the first-ever US ice dance gold at the Olympics.
Virtue and Moir waltzed to silver at the Iceberg Skating Palace with an overall score of 190.99 after breaking the free program record with 114.66.
Ilinykh and Katsalapov won the battle for third place with a score of 183.48, finishing ahead of Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat of France, who had a total of 177.22.
The Russian pair add bronze to the gold medal they won with their compatriots in the team event earlier in the Games.
Russia's Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitry Soloviev were fifth with a score of 172.92.
This is the third medal for Russia in figure skating so far, following golds in the team gold and for Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov in the pairs.
Fifteen-year-old prodigy Julia Lipnitskaia will go for the host nation's next figure skating medal on Wednesday and Thursday.
